Hello, I'm Jennifer. I write about faith and family from the perspective of a Gen-Xer navigating life in the 21st Century. Generation X, a so-called "lost generation" of former latchkey kids, was born between 1961 and 1981. Thanks for stopping by!

Comments

They’d be crazy not to keep your working. I love the multi-generational workforce and absolutely have come to dread the exit of Baby Boomers. I am soaking up their wisdom, guidance, etc., DAILY!!! And, i’m not far behind them – less so all the while.

TOB: Your knowledge of so many things is so impressive. It’s why I’m just blown away every time I read your blog. I do buy into generational theory, however, and the collective personas of generations even though I think a lot of the marketing demographic research I read is nonsense. Part of this infographic made me roll my eyes, and half the time what I read about Gen Y and Gen Z and even Boomers is exactly what *they* said about Generation X. Like Solomon said, there is nothing new under the sun.

I think it’s important to use broad brush strokes when talking about generations. One of my favorite authors, the American writer Willa Cather said, “There are only two or three human stories, and they go on repeating themselves as fiercely as if they had never happened before…” When I talk about the hole in the tree of every generation it is the acknowledgement that human suffering, disappointment, tragedies transcend generations. These holes, manifested in latchkey childhoods or burying classmates who died in Vietnam or being 30 with a college degree and working at a convenient store occur against different backdrops. Cars, fashion, presidents, world events, natural disasters and more contribute to the memory bank. I remember U2 differently than my sisters who remember Elton John differently than our parents. This is where I see the collective persona really take shape. I think “group think” is something altogether different. I had to laugh at your phrase, “they’re not all endowed with special virtues.” Haha! If Gen Y has special virtues beyond the rest of us I hope they use them to solve all our problems starting not with global warming, AIDS and world hunger, but the problem that permeates through all mankind: selfishness. Thanks for your comment TOB. I can’t find your Twitter ID on your blog. (Just FYI) I wanted to point to your comment in a tweet.

Rose, My mom has more than a 90 percent hearing loss. She’s a member of the Silent Generation and these technologies mean so much to her, too!! I didn’t realize your voice box was damaged. I am so sorry. Even damaged, your voice and spirit resound! Love to you and thank you so much for your generosity and thoughtful comments. I love to read each one. I wish I were as eloquent in commenting as you.

While I already knew most of these statistics, a few of them were new to me–for this I thank you so very gratefully. As a very proud Boomer, I see that I am very much out of sync with my peers when it comes to technology and social networking. I am “into” these technologies in all their postive uses even more than many Gen X and Gen Y folks, it seems! With my damage voice box, these technologies are SUCH a godsend to me! Jen, keep up this great work here!

While I agree that negatively labeling Milllennials – as was done with Gen X by Boomers – is wrong, and I agree that Xers should reach out to Millennials – it won’t do any good at all if we simply feed them the same feel-good-about -yourself hype that the Boomers initially fed Gen Y.

Hype is hype. It does not matter if it is good or bad. The truth is that the Millennials have not proven themselves yet so calling them ‘best generation ever’ is simply another media tagline. They are a diverse collection of individuals. They face different truths. Some of them will succeed according to their abilities. Some will not. The whole lot of them are not endowed with special virtues.

We have to stop thinking groupthink and break down the urge to categorize people according to mindless mass demographic labels, categorized them according to how we think they vote, whether they have a tattoo, what their pop culture tastes are, or whatever. While I acknowledge I do this on my blog because this is part of the world we live in, it is important that we now try to transcend demographic stratification which began as a marketing tactic after WWII an especially in the 60s.

My point: it’s great to build vertical loyalties (up and down the age ladder) to weaken horizontal generational alignments. But it will do no good at all if you launch your vertical appeal between X and Y simply by reinforcing the horizontal loyalty in Gen Y, by telling them what a solid group they are. Xers have to tell them: the idea that you belong to one age group that will shape your social existence is a marketing lie. Xers have to make them see through the Boomer hype, not get on the hyping bandwagon.

I work with several Gen Yers and am very impressed with what they do and how they go about doing it. I expect, since I want to stay here another 10 years if the let me, that I will work for one of more of them as time goes by, and I’m ok with that. I just hope they are.